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<h2 class="title">New Report: 20,000 California Students Arrested or
Ticketed in 2009-10, Vast Majority Are Youth of Color </h2>
<div class="links"> <b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.thestrategycenter.org/blog/2014/03/18/new-report-20000-california-students-arrested-or-ticketed-2009-10-vast-majority-are">http://www.thestrategycenter.org/blog/2014/03/18/new-report-20000-california-students-arrested-or-ticketed-2009-10-vast-majority-are</a>-</small></small></b><br>
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<div class="submitted"> by <a
href="http://www.thestrategycenter.org/user/ashley-franklin"
title="View user profile.">Ashley Franklin</a> on <span
class="date-display-single">Tuesday, March 18, 2014</span> </div>
<h3>New Report: 20,000 California Students Arrested or Ticketed in
2009-10, Vast Majority Are Youth of Color</h3>
<p>
<b>"Local Control Funding Formula" Should Strengthen Support Services,
Not School Police, Report Says </b>
</p>
<p>
<br>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<div class="asset-asset-link asset-align-none"><a
href="http://www.thestrategycenter.org/sites/www.thestrategycenter.org/files/Crystal%20McMillan/LCFF%20POLICY%20BRIEF%203-20-2014.pdf"
class="asset">The New "Separate and Unequal" Using CA LCFF to
Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline</a></div>
<p>
The Community Rights Campaign (CRC) and the <a
href="http://www.blackorganizingproject.org/" target="_blank">Black
Organizing Project</a> (based in Oakland) released a report that
presents startling new data on the role of police officers in schools
and the need to address this statewide problem within the new Local
Control Funding Formula.
</p>
<p>
"The New ‘Separate and Unequal': Using California's Local Control
Funding Formula to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline" highlights
the dramatic expansion in school police forces across the state, with
many districts now employing more than 50 police officers. As a result,
many schools now rely on law enforcement personnel to handle routine
school disciplinary matters, resulting in well over 30,000 California
students being referred to the police in just one school year. At least
20,000 students were arrested or given a police ticket, and over 90% of
them were youth of color.
</p>
<p>
"<i>This constitutes a major violation of students' civil, human, and
educational rights, and has produced irreparable harm to students
across California</i>," said Manuel Criollo, Director of Organizing at
the Labor/Community Strategy Center. "<i>Los Angeles and Oakland youth
have been leading important struggles at LAUSD and OUSD to curb the
criminalization of students in school, now we want to open up the
debate to build the schools our youth deserve and start funding
supportive and positive school environments.</i>"
</p>
<p>
The report also highlights how school budgets across the state have
been increasingly devoted to school police and security at the expense
of vital support and educational services. For example, Oakland Unified
School District has over 115 law enforcement officers and security
personnel, but only 11 counselors, four psychologists, and zero social
workers in the entire district.
</p>
<h3> In 2011-12 there were at least 18 other districts across the state
that spent more on school security than they did on counselors,
psychologists, and social workers.</h3>
<p>
For example, in Los Angeles Unified School District, the budget for
school police and security is $91.3 million, which is more than what
the district budgeted for afterschool programs, 73% more than it
budgeted for counselors, and far more than double what it budgeted for
health services and teacher assistants. In fact, the police/security
budget was substantially more than the combined budgets for the arts
program, psychologists, the Office of Civil Rights, instructional
aides, psychiatric social workers, parent involvement, and career
technical education.
</p>
<p>
"<i>These misplaced priorities have deepened the longstanding resource
inequities faced by communities of color,</i>" said Jackie Byers,
Director of the Black Organizing Project. "<i>Resources that could have
gone towards support staff, afterschool programs, and more effective
disciplinary alternatives instead have gone towards school police,
security guards, and surveillance cameras in many of our school
districts, which serve mostly Black and Latino youth. In other words,
an increasing percentage of the funds allocated to California's
low-income youth of color have been used in ways that have actively
harmed them</i>."
</p>
<p>
The report presents a series of recommendations for using the state's
new Local Control Funding Formula to shift investments from school
policing to proven alternatives that promote healthy school climates,
improved academic achievement, and greater school safety.
</p>
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